Our Domestic Birds Part 8

Before cold-storage methods had been brought to high efficiency, there was a period in the latter part of the winter and the early spring when young chickens were very scarce. The number that could be hatched with hens to meet a demand at this season was small, and those who were hatching autumn and winter chickens by the natural method found it more profitable to keep them to sell as roasters late in the spring and early in the summer.

=The "broiler craze."= A little before 1890, artificial incubators being then first brought to a perfection which made them popular, some poultry keepers began to hatch chickens in the winter to meet the demand for early broilers. Those who were successful made a very good profit on what chickens they had ready to sell while the prices were high. Most of them operated in a very small way, taking up this work simply for occupation when they had nothing else to do. Many were gardeners who had just about enough slack time, after the harvest of one year was over, to hatch and grow one lot of broilers before beginning their regular spring work.

These people were not under any delusions about the limitations on this line of production. They knew that the demand for very small chickens at very high prices was limited and easily satisfied. But, as usual, the published accounts of what they were doing set a great many people to figuring the possibilities of profit from such a business conducted on a large scale. For a few years the broiler craze affected nearly every one interested in poultry keeping. Thousands who never engaged in it were restrained only because of lack of capital or inability to adapt it to their circ.u.mstances. Many people who had been through several unsatisfactory ventures in poultry keeping thought that they saw in this the one sure road to wealth, and began to make plans to grow broilers in large quant.i.ties. Besides these business ventures there were countless small ones, sometimes conducted under the most unsuitable conditions.

People tried to grow broilers in living rooms, in attics, in all sorts of unheated outbuildings, and in house cellars to which the daylight hardly penetrated.

=Present condition of broiler growing.= The production of broilers as a specialty did not last long. The improvement in cold-storage methods soon made it possible for speculators to carry over large quant.i.ties of summer chickens, and the poultry keepers in other lines could easily arrange to produce all the fresh broilers that could be sold at a good profit.

ROASTER GROWING

=Description of a good roaster.= To roast nicely, a fowl must be full-grown and well filled out, but young, soft-meated, and fat. A fowl is "ripe" for a choice roaster for only a short period after arriving at maturity. When a pullet has laid a few eggs, her flesh becomes harder and is never again as tender and juicy as it was before she laid an egg.

When the spurs of a c.o.c.kerel begin to harden and to grow a long, sharp point, and the bird becomes boisterous and quarrelsome, the flesh becomes dry and tough and is not fit for roasting.

=General and special supplies.= From July, when the earliest farm chickens are large enough for roasting, until about the first of February, when the last of the late-hatched farm chickens disappear from the markets, there are nearly always enough very good roasting chickens in the general market receipts to supply the demand for that cla.s.s and grade of poultry. Then for four or five months there are no fresh roasting chickens on the market except those grown especially for this trade. This line of poultry culture was developed first near Philadelphia, in southern New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, about forty years ago. The chickens were hatched with hens in the autumn and early winter, each grower having only a few hundred. They were sold not only in Philadelphia but in New York and Boston, and in smaller Eastern cities where there was a demand for them. They were, and still are, commonly known as Philadelphia chickens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 111. Ma.s.sachusetts soft-roaster plant]

=Large roaster plants.= After incubators came into common use, the production of Philadelphia chickens increased, but a more remarkable development of that line of production took place in Plymouth County, Ma.s.sachusetts, just about the time the broiler craze started. The growing of winter chickens had been carried on to some extent in southern New England in the same way as in the vicinity of Philadelphia, but the local supply was small and irregular until artificial methods were adopted. Then, quite suddenly, the industry developed extensively in the vicinity of Norwell, Hanover, and Rockland. Its growth was remarkable, both because of the number of people who were successful on a comparatively large scale, and because it attracted almost no attention outside of this district until long after it had become a well-established local industry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 112. Incubator cellar]

The methods of the roaster growers in this district are very intensive, but as originally developed their business was not a continuous line of intensive poultry culture, nor is it continuous now except in some cases. For many years after the business began, the growers bought the eggs that they incubated from farmers whose flocks were kept under good conditions and were strong and vigorous; but as the numbers engaged in growing winter chickens increased, the supply of eggs from the farms was not sufficient, and some of the roaster growers began to keep hens to supply a part of the eggs they used. Later some produced all the eggs for hatching that they needed for their own use, and a few sold to others also. This, however, can be done only by those having quite large farms. Some of the most successful growers have only a few acres of land and do not attempt to keep breeding fowls.

Hatching begins in August or September and is continued until all the chickens that can be handled are hatched. If the eggs hatch well from the start, a large grower may have his houses full by December, but usually it takes until January to complete hatching, and sometimes it takes longer. The price paid for eggs for hatching is only a little above the price of market eggs, and the buyer takes all the risks of poor hatches. The chickens are kept in warm brooder houses as long as they need artificial heat, then they are removed to cold brooder houses of the same type or to colony houses. Those who have land enough use mostly colony houses. While in the heated brooder houses the chickens are fed in the regular way--with mixed ground grains, either dry or moistened, and small whole or cracked grains. After they leave the brooder houses they have cracked corn, beef sc.r.a.p, and water always before them; for green food they have cabbage or the winter rye or gra.s.s growing on the land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 113. House used for growing roasting chickens]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 114. Group of houses like that in Fig. 113]

As the object of the grower is to have chickens that will grow large and remain soft as long as possible, the breeds used are princ.i.p.ally Light Brahmas and Plymouth Rocks, although when eggs of these varieties cannot be obtained in sufficient quant.i.ties, Wyandottes are used. The c.o.c.kerels are caponized when they are about two months old. A capon does not grow a comb or spurs, nor does it crow. If a perfect capon, it remains always soft-meated and may grow very large, though it does not, as is commonly supposed, grow larger than a c.o.c.kerel within the time it is usually kept before being killed. An imperfect capon will after a time grow a comb and short spurs and, though sterile, becomes harder in flesh than a perfect capon. An imperfect capon is technically called a _slip_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 115. Petaluma egg farm. (Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

About the first of March some of the earliest pullets may begin to lay.

From that time all the pullets that begin to lay, and the slips as they appear, are marketed; all others are kept, because the grower realizes the largest profit on those that can be marketed in June and July, when the price is highest. By the middle of July, at the latest, everything is sold. The poultry keeper then begins to prepare for the next crop of chickens by taking up all his fences, plowing land that is not in gra.s.s, and planting it with winter rye or cabbage or some late garden crop. Rye and cabbage are preferred, because the rye will remain green all winter and furnish green food for chickens that have access to it, and the cabbage makes the best of green food for the little chickens in the brooder houses. It is just as good for the others, too, but not many of the poultry keepers grow enough to continue feeding it to them throughout the winter.

While the land on these plants is heavily stocked with poultry, the birds are on it only half of the season,--when vegetation grows freely,--and during the remainder of the season a great deal of manure is removed from the soil by gross-feeding crops like rye and cabbage. So the land may be heavily stocked longer than it could be if fowls were on it all the time. The chickens grown in this way do not usually grow so large as those that are given more room, but they are grown at less cost and are as large as the market demands. By this method the land will carry a large crop of chickens year after year for many years, yet it finally becomes so contaminated that chickens do not thrive on it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 116. Group of houses on a Petaluma egg farm.

(Photograph from Bureau of Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture)]

INTENSIVE EGG FARMING

Still another important development due to artificial incubation took place in California. The climate of the Pacific Coast is well suited to fowls of the Mediterranean cla.s.s, the cold never being severe enough to affect their large combs. Hence these fowls early became very popular with farmers in this section, but as they were non-sitters, those who kept them had to keep hens of another breed to hatch and rear the chickens. When an incubator factory was established at Petaluma, California, the farmers in that vicinity began to use incubators, and some small egg farms grew up in the town. White Leghorns were kept almost exclusively. Before long the egg industry here had grown to such proportions that it was the most important local industry, and the district became celebrated as a center of egg production. Although the product is different, and a different type of fowl is used, the conditions at Petaluma closely resemble those in the roaster-growing district of Ma.s.sachusetts. The special egg farms are small, each containing from five to ten acres. The houses for the laying hens are larger than the colony houses used in Rhode Island, and are arranged in groups of three, each group containing about five hundred hens.

The egg farmers grow their own pullets but, as a rule, do not breed or hatch them. The hatching is done by custom hatcheries, the eggs coming from flocks of White Leghorns on farms that do not specialize in poultry but keep a flock of Leghorns under more favorable conditions than exist on the egg farms. Here, as in the Ma.s.sachusetts district, the bad effects of intensive methods are reduced for a time, because the fowls affected by them are not used for reproduction.

POULTRY FANCIERS' FARMS

A large proportion of poultry fanciers are city people who have very little room for their fowls. Some have no room at all for growing chickens, although, by giving them the best of care, they can keep a small flock of adult birds in fair condition. Such fanciers have to find farmers to grow chickens for them. This is not so easy as is commonly supposed, for the farmers who are sufficiently interested in poultry to give them the care required to make good exhibition birds usually want to give their own birds all the time they can spare for work with poultry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 117. Yards of a small poultry fancier]

So it happens that, after a few years' experience in keeping fine fowls in close quarters, an amateur fancier almost always wants to move to a farm where he can grow more and better chickens. A small farm near a city suits the average fancier best, because, when so situated, he can continue his regular work and look after his poultry in leisure time.

Fanciers generally use houses with many pens under one roof, because, even when they have only one variety, the different matings must be kept separate during the breeding season, the adult males must be kept separate at all times, and valuable hens cannot be kept in large flocks except when damage to plumage may be remedied before they are to be exhibited or sold. A fancier will keep only five or six birds, and sometimes only two or three, where a utility poultry keeper would keep a dozen. If the yards connecting with the pens in the houses are small, he will arrange so that each lot of fowls may have access to a large yard daily or on alternate days. In every way practicable the experienced fancier arranges to give his fowls all the advantages of natural conditions, while isolating them as completely as is necessary to keep each individual in perfect condition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 118. Large fancy-poultry farm]

Poultry farms that were started as intensive market-poultry or egg farms are sometimes converted into fancy-poultry farms. This is very likely to be the case if thoroughbred stock is used and the owner becomes skillful as a breeder. If he can breed fowls of a quality to command high prices, he may be able to produce enough of them on a small farm to make a very good living, when it would be very much harder, or perhaps impossible, to make the farm profitable with ordinary stock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 119. Growing chicks in a fancier's yard]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 120. Young stock in cornfield on a fancier's farm]

While farmers usually care more for horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, many become interested in poultry, and if they are natural fanciers and good business men, it often happens that the growing of fancy poultry becomes one of the most important industries on the farm. Many women on farms become interested in fancy poultry, and some become very skillful breeders and exhibitors. A farmer-fancier's poultry plant is usually a combination of extensive and intensive methods. Some buildings with small compartments must be provided, but all except the choicest birds can be managed just like the ordinary fowls on a farm where arrangements are made with a view to giving them the full advantage of the good conditions which the place affords.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 121. Summer quarters for poultry. (Photograph from New York State Agricultural College at Cornell University)]

To a novice in fancy-poultry culture the number of chickens grown by expert fanciers seems very small for the equipment and the land used, but the old fancier has learned in the costly school of compet.i.tion, by the bitter experience of defeat, that in growing exhibition poultry it pays to give the birds a great deal more room, both indoors and outdoors, than is needed simply to get quick growth and good size.

Elegance of form, depth and brilliance of color, and the indefinable qualities of style and finish that distinguish the high-cla.s.s exhibition fowl are obtained in a much larger proportion of birds when they are given a great deal more room than they apparently need.

CHAPTER VI

DUCKS

Ducks rank next to fowls in economic importance. If there were no fowls, domestic ducks would probably be as numerous as fowls are now, for it is much easier to produce eggs and meat from ducks than from any known species of gallinaceous bird except the fowl. To most people who are not accustomed to eating them, neither the flesh nor the eggs of ducks seem quite as palatable as the flesh and eggs of fowls. On the other hand, people accustomed to eating fat ducks and the eggs of ducks, which contain a much higher percentage of fat than hens' eggs, often consider the flesh and eggs of fowls rather insipid. The feathers of ducks are more valuable commercially than those of fowls but are not correspondingly profitable to the producer, because ducks are much harder to pluck.

=Description.= Common ducks are about the same size as common fowls. The improved breeds vary greatly in size but do not present such extremes of size and diversity of form as are found in the races of fowls. As the duck in a state of nature lives much upon the water, its form is at nearly every point different from the typical form of the fowl. The duck is usually described as boat-shaped, but, while this is a good description, it would be more correct to say that a boat is duck-shaped.

The duck was the natural model for the first builders of boats.

The bills of ducks are large, rather flat, and broad at the tip. The species to which most of our domestic ducks belong has no head ornaments corresponding to the comb and wattles of the fowl. There is one variety of this species which has a topknot, or crest. The Muscovy Duck, which is of a different species, has a bare face with a carunculated red skin.

The plumage of ducks is very soft and dense, forming a thick covering which, when the feathers are in a natural position, is impenetrable to water and so perfect a protection from wind and cold that hardy ducks are quite indifferent to keen winds and low temperatures, and, if left to themselves, rarely seek shelter in winter. During a heavy snowfall they will get under cover to escape being buried in the snow. At other times they seem quite as comfortable on snow and ice as on the ground.

One of the most interesting sights of the poultry yard is to see a duck sit down on the snow or ice when the temperature is below zero, draw up its feet and work them into the feathers at the side of its body until they are completely covered, tuck its bill into the feathers of its back until only the nostrils and a little of the base of the bill are exposed, and remain this way through the coldest nights rather than go a few feet to a comfortable house with warm bedding on the floor. Being better adapted to cold than fowls, they are, as would be expected, much more susceptible to heat and suffer greatly in hot summer weather if exposed to the sun or kept where there is not a good circulation of air.

The tails of ducks are short, spread laterally, and are usually folded close and carried with the tip a little higher than the base. The legs are very short, comparatively slender, and weak. Most ducks walk awkwardly and fall down and flounder about helplessly when they try to run. The legs of a duck are so weak that it is not safe to catch or handle them by the legs, as fowls are usually caught and handled. It is very easy to break or dislocate the leg of a duck in this way. Hence, the usual method is to catch and carry them by the neck, which is very strong. Most persons who are not used to handling ducks are afraid of choking them by grasping the neck firmly, but there is very little danger of this. The feet of a duck are webbed between the forward toes, which makes them more serviceable as paddles in swimming. They are not suited to perching. There is a wild tree duck, and it is said that the domestic Muscovy Duck sometimes alights in trees or on objects above the ground, but the familiar kinds of ducks rest only on the surface of the land or on the water.

Although the males average a little larger, the male and female of the same stock are usually nearer the same size than in gallinaceous birds.

The only marks by which s.e.x can be distinguished in all ducks are the voice and the presence or absence of the small curled feathers on the tail which characterize the males. In party-colored varieties the color markings of the male and female are sometimes different. The "quack" of the duck is the note of the female; the male makes a very subdued similar sound, comparing with it as a hoa.r.s.e whisper compares with the natural tones of the human voice.

The duck derives its English name from its habit of ducking its head into the water in search of food at the bottom of the shallow waters, which it prefers. The term "duck" is applied to males and females collectively, and also to the female as distinguished from the male. The male is called a _drake_. The name "drake" is supposed to be derived from an Old German word meaning "the chief duck." Any one who is familiar with the habits of ducks will see at once the appropriateness of the term. Ducks often march in single file, and when they do so, all the drakes in a group go first, the ducks following them, usually with a little s.p.a.ce between. So if there is only one male, he marches a little ahead of his flock, like a commander. Young ducks are called _ducklings_, the name being applied to both s.e.xes. In our language there are no special terms applying to a young duck and a young drake as distinguished from adult birds.